Posts Tagged ‘journalism’

Singularity Effect vs. Psychic Numbing. Really interesting Vox article about our collective inability to feel empathy for addressing a problem when the number of characters in the story grows from one to two to 20 million. Make the numbers big and you lose a significant amount of engagement. Choose to communicate data or an anecdote – probably best to avoid trying both.

ACTION ITEM: Can you break your story, such as a use case, down into more relatable numbers, perhaps a personal anecdote told from the perspective of an individual? Or can you offer the solution to a smaller subset of a larger challenge so it seems more relatable – and achievable?

Coffee last Thursday with documentary filmmaker Mike Bloebaum who used to work with such legends as Irwin Rosten and Nicolas Noxon. Like me, he approaches every project with amazing enthusiasm and devotion – but the moment it’s over it’s completely forgotten, almost like it didn’t happen. Bloebaum says that Noxon called it “temporary enthusiasm”, which is a perfect description of every day of every job I’ve ever done.

I participated in this year’s “A Day At Play” event sponsored by our local newspaper, The Union, in which readers are encouraged to supply photos and videos depicting locals enjoying a day out and about. The final assembled submissions will be printed/posted Saturday July 1. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peak at the photos and 10-second video I submitted:

I’ve never encountered this before, so I really could use some guidance. I have a project coming up soon where the person I’m interviewing on camera may not be completely thrilled about some of the issues we’ll be covering, ranging from the slightly awkward (showing up wearing the same novelty t-shirt) to possibly litigious (her pickup ran over your dog). Any tips or tricks for keeping the speaker on track even when they may not be totally happy about where the conversation’s going?

This is the first of six brief videos showing some of the new gear I’ve acquired since the end of last year; this first one is all about the Kessler Second Shooter device. The video runs a little long (still less than 3 minutes), for which I am deeply and truly sorry, but I’ve made up for it by including an insanely helpful tip at the end about making “Cheat Sheets” for complex equipment you may use only infrequently. Check it.

Ever not completely sure when to use “it’s” versus “its”? I feel the same way when driving on a one-lane road, going up or down, and someone else pops up ahead. If I’m going up, and I supposed to go back down? Or am I supposed to back up? (spoiler alert: the vehicle facing downhill must yield the right-of-way by backing up until the vehicle going uphill can pass) The trick I use is the one who must back up, backs UP. Get it? Yeah, pretty awesome. Here’s my “its” “it’s” memory device: the word “it’s” is short for “it is” or “it has” – the apostrophe is doing the work of a letter or two. If you’re not replacing one or two letters, you don’t need the apostrophe.